


Grasshopper

by mageofpie



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: (but not That slow burn cause im impatient), Alternate Universe - High School, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Nerd/Cheerleader, Slow Burn, Studying, because i love myself, but also hate myself, but im doing anyway, its the ash/jess nerd dating a cheerleader fic no one asked for, theyre both assholes in this and i love it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-06 08:00:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14637516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mageofpie/pseuds/mageofpie
Summary: She was a girlShe was also a girlCan I make it any more obvious?___Jessica's pissed after being told she has to pass English if she wants to stay on the squad, and Ashley's pissed she has to teach some moron how to read.Clearly a match made in heaven.





	1. Biting the Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> hoo boy i cant believe im starting Another fic  
> lets hope i can actually finish this one
> 
> i have such a thing for nerd/cheerleader ships so obviously i have to write one about one of my fave, underrepresented ships of all time: ashley/jessica aka ultimate nerd/cheerleader ship  
> i planned it out in my notebook and honestly it kinda spiralled out of control from there
> 
> i have the second chapter about 45% done already and i hope i can keep up the pace but please dont hold me to it, im infamously Bad at keeping up with these things
> 
> im still working on my other fic Grapevine, so dont think ive abandoned it  
> im also working on various oneshots so look forward to them whenever i manage to finish them
> 
> i also wanna thank imdisapointingmyparents for helping me write portions or this and edit stuff, you really make my life easier, my friend <3 (no homo)
> 
> for now, thanks for clicking, hope you enjoy the first chapter :V

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jess snarled, clenching her fists so hard her nails dug into the skin.

Jennifer winced and glanced nervously back at the other cheerleaders limbering up behind her. She huffed and gave Jess a stern look, but Jess was far too pissed off at the sheer injustice of this situation to even flinch.

“Look, Jess, it’s not my idea, okay?” Her captain tried to reason, holding her hands out like she was approaching a wild animal which only angered Jess even more.

“Like _hell_ it is!” Jess whined, stomping her foot on the well manicured football field, “You fuckers think you’re slick, I _know_ you’ve wanted me outta commission since I dropped the stupid fucking baton at the playoffs.”

Jennifer let out a loud sigh and dragged her hands down her face, annoyance lacing her tone, “Oh my god, are you still mad about that? No one even noticed, that’s not what this is even about!”

“Then what _is_ it about!?”

“It’s about you totally flunking English!”

Jessica let out a scandalised gasp and brought a hand to her chest. Some of the girls on the field behind Jennifer had started staring at the two of them arguing and Jess felt like yelling at them to mind their own damn business. She self consciously rubbed her chest, wind sufficiently gone from her sails.

“S-So? What’s that got to do with how well I can cheer?” Jess said, voice losing most of its bite now that her less-than-fantastic grades had been broadcast to the rest of the squad.

“ _Nothing_. That’s why I’m saying it wasn’t my fucking idea.” Jennifer sighed and put her hands on her hips, giving Jess a sympathetic look, “I don’t give a shit about your grades as long as you can do a cartwheel, but apparently, if you want to stay, you’re gonna have to do a bit better in class.”

Jess sighed and dropped her gaze to the floor. She’d hoped that her GPA wouldn’t affect the stuff she _actually_ liked doing, like cheering, but the school’s faculty had different plans.

She’d never really excelled academically, a fact Jess didn’t like to admit she was embarrassed about, but what she lacked in brain power she more than made up for in physical activity. Actual sports weren’t her thing, but cheerleading gave her chance to work off the energy she built up during those long, boring hours sat in a classroom.

Her worst subject was English so it wasn’t a surprise that’s what she was supposed to get better at if she wanted to stay on the squad. Jess felt a wave of boredom crash over her just thinking about it. Pages and pages of words she didn’t understand and sentences that didn’t make a fucking lick of sense. She hated getting called on to read a passage from whatever book the class was going over, hated how she stumbled over words and heard the rest of the class groan and snicker at how slow she read out loud.

So, no. English wasn’t her best subject.

She hated it.

Jennifer took a step closer and put a comforting hand of Jessica’s shoulder, probably seeing in her face just how upset she was. Jess pouted and furrowed her brow, looking down at the overly green grass.

“Hey, I know this sucks-”

“Sucks fucking _balls,_ ” Jess quickly interjected and Jenny snorted.

“Yeah, it sucks fucking balls, but the quicker you get this over with the quicker you can be back with us.”

Jess groaned dramatically, “But it’s so haaard.”

Jennifer groaned along with her in a patronising mimic, grinning slightly, “I knooow, but you better work, bitch.”

Jess cackled, “Don’t think bringing Britney Spears lyrics into this will make me like, less mad and shit.”

“Whatever.” Jenny rolled her eyes, taking her hand off Jessica’s shoulder, “Why don’t you try that student tutor program thing?”

“Ugh,” Jessica scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out. Their school, over the past year, had started a program where higher achieving students helped their struggling peers get better grades. Certainly not an uncommon practice in most schools, but the thought of some big headed, up their own ass, patronising poindexter teaching Jess the do’s and don’t’s of essay writing for however long made her want to rip her own jaw off.

“Don’t be such a brat, Jess,” Jenny scolded lightly, mouth quirking into a small smile, “It’s the only thing left. You told me yourself Emily won’t help you out.”

That was true.

Jessica loved her best friend, but man, she could be a bitch sometimes.

She pursed her lips for a moment and then groaned, throwing her arms in the air, “ _Fine!_ I’ll get a stupid nerd tutor.”

Jennifer clapped, “Awesome! You actually did something smart!”

“Oh, shut _up!_ ” Jessica said, reaching to punch Jenny in the shoulder, the other girl quickly leaning back to avoid it and the both of them laughing.

Jess leaned in and whispered harshly, “While I’m gone, you better not give that bitch Caitlin my spot. The bitch has no fucking rhythm, I don’t even know why you let her join.” Jennifer snorted and shook her head, ignoring Jessica’s very serious concern.

“Hey, maybe you’ll get paired with some cutie and you can fall in love and all that dumb shit,” Jenny joked, sounding like she was about to burst out laughing just saying it.

Jessica leaned back, scoffed, and rolled her eyes, “Oh, yeah, totally. Like I’d ever fall for some douche canoe who thinks they’re better than me just ‘cause they can like, understand Shakespeare or whatever. As _if_.”

* * *

“Ah, geez _Louise_ …” Ashley let her hands drop to the table with a thud and stared at the die.

Critical miss.

Chris started cackling, “Ooooh, a one? Sucks to be you.”

Josh sucked in a breath through his teeth, cocky grin etched onto his face, “You go to rest your arm against the wall in a seductive lean, forgetting that there is in fact no wall. You fall spectacularly and land into a nearby barkeep, sending their tray of mead flying into the air and all over the patrons at the bar. The _busty_ maiden is thoroughly unimpressed by your attempts to seduce her and she walks away in disgust.”

Josh made a squishing gesture with his hands at the emphasis on “busty” and pretended to angrily throw hair over his shoulder while Chris cackled.

Ashley groaned and thunked her head onto the table. They’d been playing for a few hours and her rolls had been getting worse and worse by the minute.

“Can I roll to save my dignity?” She asked, only half joking.

Josh snorted, “ ‘fraid not, amigo. You thoroughly fucked that up.”

“I think your dice are cursed,” Chris said, gently patting the back of her head in something akin to comfort, but mostly just to patronise her. She raised her head and shot him a look and he grinned sheepishly at her. Their campaign had been going strong for a couple of weeks and while Ashley’s rolls hadn’t always been the best, they were always enough to save her from completely screwing the pooch and getting her and Chris killed.

“I think that’s a good place to end today on,” Josh dramatically snapped shut his notebook and folded down his DM screen. Ashley tutted and closed her own notebook, scooping up her dice back into her pocket.

“You mean on me getting blue balled?” She deadpanned.

“Hey, man, it’s not my fault you got no game with the ladies.”

“In real life or otherwise,” Chris added, dropping his own dice into a small pouch and shoving them in his bag. Ashley tutted and shoved herself away from the table, standing up to stretch and electing to ignore the ribbing she was getting from her friends. She’d only lived in California for 2 years but they were probably the closest thing she’d ever had to best friends since her sheer lack of social skills and penchant for being a bit too blunt had made everyone else who knew her wary to hang out.

“Damn, is it that fuckin’ late already?” Josh said and Ashley glanced at the lopsided clock hung on the wall to see the time just tick over to 1am. They’d been going since school ended, only breaking to order pizza.

“Aw, crud,” Ashley muttered, “I totally forgot to text my mom, she’s gonna be so worried.”

“I mean, we’ve done this so many times, she probably knows what you’re up to by now, right?” Chris rationalised, lugging his backpack up onto his shoulder.

“Sure, but I don’t want her to wait up for me,” Ashley rubbed the crease in her brow and fumbled her shitty phone out of one of her many pockets. Cargo shorts were useful, damn it. Stupid thing had turned itself off and upon turning it back on Ashley found notifications for 3 missed called and many more text messages from her mother.

“Aw, _cruuuuud_ …” she whined. The last message she got was at around 10:30 pm and simply read:

_Alright, I’ll assume you’re just dead in a ditch somewhere. I’ll be in bed when you get home. xxxx_

Trust her mom to have grammatically correct text messages.

“Hey, don’t worry about it, I’ll give you a ride home,” Josh stood from his chair and pat his pocket to feel for his Jeep’s keys.

Ashley hummed and chewed her lip, shoving her phone back in her pocket with thinly veiled ire. Even though she couldn’t have helped her phone dying on her, she still felt horrifically guilty for making her mom worry like this. That, and her consistent losing streak that night had already put her in a sour mood.

“Thanks, man,” Ashley smiled at him. She glanced at their barely salvageable pile of snacks and snatched up a half-eaten box, “and I’m takin’ the Cheez-Its.”

“I can’t believe there’s even any left for you to take,” Chris noted, leading the way to the stairs out of Josh’s room. The fact that Josh had managed to convince his dad to let him convert the entirety of the basement into his own living quarters would never cease to amaze her. Josh often joked that living in his parents basement had never been so cool. It felt like every time she came over there was a new trinket somewhere, the most recent additions being a shag rug and lava lamp.

The trio made their way upstairs as quietly as possible knowing full well that the rest of the Washington’s were probably asleep and wouldn’t take too kindly to their eldest child and his friends clomping around on their hardwood floors at 1 in the morning on a weekday. Josh gently closed the front door behind them and they made their way to his bumper sticker covered Jeep.

Ashley opened up the back door to Josh’s car and shoved over the pile of McDonald’s wrappers. If she ate quick enough she could probably add the empty Cheez-It box to the pile without him noticing the difference. The engine coughed to life and Josh began the drive to Ashley’s house, Chris huddled in the passenger seat.

She was in the midst of shoving another handful of crackers into her mouth when a thought dawned on her.

“Jesus…” Ashley whined.

“Oh god, what now?” Josh groaned, glancing at her in the rear view mirror.

“I just remembered,” Ashley chomped into her crackers, finishing her sentence around a mouthful of crumbs, “I signed up for that dumb student tutor thing and I’m getting paired with some _idiot_ tomorrow.”

“Yikes,” Chris said, turning in his seat to give her a sympathetic look, “why would you even sign up for it?”

“Because I need something to put on my college application. I’m not in any clubs so I have to do _something_ extra curricular,” Ashley tossed the now empty box onto the pile next to her and folded her arms. Even when she lived in Massachusetts, Ashley’s after school activities consisted of rushing home to do her homework and read. She hadn’t wanted to spend any more time around the kids in her class than she had to and while her home life wasn’t peachy either, at least at home she could lock her bedroom door and pretend everything was fine for a while.

She was picked last for sports, projects, and presentations. Despite being probably the smartest kid in her class, no one had wanted to work with her and honestly, if all they were going to do was shove the workload onto her and call her weird, that was fine by her. It had gotten to the point where Ashley would simply ask the teacher if she could work alone; it was easier that way.

She was lucky she even managed to find friends as easy as she did in LA. If Josh hadn’t approached her at lunch that first week she would’ve carried on the same routine until college and probably beyond that.

“I just… ugh,” Ashley huffed and stared out the window at passing street lamps, feeling both Chris and Josh staring at her with amusement, “I’m gonna get paired with some dumb jock who probably won’t even show up, and if they do they’re not gonna pay attention, or they’re gonna talk over me, or they’re gonna make fun of me, or _whatever_. I don’t have the patience for morons.”

“I think you’re being a bit harsh, Ash,” Chris snorted, leaning over the headrest to grin at her, “You haven’t even met them yet. They might be a model student.”

Ashley rolled her eyes and gave him a withering smile, “Uh huh, sure. The only type of people who get put on these things are people who think they’re too good to pay attention in class so the teachers just get bored of dealing with them and stick them with people like me who know what they’re doing.”

“Ooooooh!” Josh raised his voice in a mocking tone of wonderment, “Someones getting a little big headed.”

“You know what? I’ve earned the right to brag,” Ashley retorted. “The only reason I’m not top of the class is because Emily Davis intimidates her teachers into giving her As.”

“Humility and the ability to lose gracefully,” Josh commented sarcastically. “You are truly a paragon of virtue.”

“Shut up,” Ashley grumbled. “I come to you guys for a little sympathy and all I get is guff.”

“You expect sympathy from _us?_ Ashley, we’re the three biggest assholes in the entire school. That’s a title you should wear proudly, by the way,” Josh said, wagging his finger.

“I wouldn’t worry, Ash, just...” Chris shrugged and fell back into his seat, waving his hand about like he was trying to fish ideas out of the air, “Just… be a dick and they’ll probably ask to be put with someone else.”

Ashley laughed, lightly kicking the back of Chris’ seat, “Oh, yeah, that’ll be good for me, totally not gonna ruin my applications.”

“Hey, it’d still count! You don’t _have_ to tell colleges you were a dick.”

Ashley sighed, still grinning somewhat, “Yeah, okay… I’ll just… see how it goes, or something.”

The trio fell into comfortable silence for a minute as Josh turned onto a familiar street. He slowed to a stop in front of Ashley’s house and she hopped out of the Jeep. The three said their goodbyes and she waved to Josh and Chris as they pulled away. Ashley watched the tail lights disappear around a corner and simply stood on the sidewalk for a moment. A dog barked in the distance.

She turned and walked to her door, fishing her keys out of her pocket and fumbled through the small ring to find it. Why did she have so many damn keychains? A battered and faded Junko Enoshima charm, a rainbow D20, some weird voodoo doll thing she’d got in an arcade after kicking a penny pusher. Ashley wouldn’t exactly call herself a hoarder, but she sure did hold on to some shit.

She tiptoed through the house and creaked her mom’s bedroom door open, gingerly walking over to the lump under the covers and gently tapping her shoulder. Her mom was a light sleeper, which was both a blessing and a curse.

“Mom…” Ashley whispered, her mother twitching over to look at her through sleepy eyes, “Sorry I’m late, we lost track of time.”

Julia Brown nodded and rolled back over, “S’okay… good night, chicken.”

“Night, mom.”

She felt a little better; at least her mom wasn’t mad at her. Or, too tired to be mad anyway. She retreated from the room and closed the door softly behind her, walking the few steps to her own room.

After that, the exhaustion hit her all at once and she was suddenly too tired to get changed into something more appropriate for sleep. In two short strides, Ash clambered her way into bed, toed her shoes off, and sighed into her pillow. She heard her cat pad sleepily into her room and jump onto her bed, snuggling into her side.

She’d worry about her dumb study partner tomorrow.


	2. Meet Cute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more of a meet,,,,, hate,,,,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said id have the next chapter out soonish??? yeaaaaaah im sorry about that  
> ive been having major creative block for the past month or so, ive been unable to write or draw anything, but i hope publishing something might throw me back into the groove
> 
> that being said, thank you all so much for the support you gave this story, i really didnt expect it and i hope i can carry on writing it ;w;
> 
> (i dont think ive read over this properly so there might be some spelling/grammar/continuity errors lmao)

“Okay, this is your last chance to admit you made a mistake and that you’re going to tutor me and I don’t have to go meet with some weirdo who probably breathes out of their mouth real heavy.”

“And this is the last time I’m telling you to fuck off and leave me alone about it.”

Jessica pouted and huffed. Emily wasn’t even looking up from her phone as she said this which, considering she was dodging and weaving through the steady flow of students in the hall, was pretty impressive. Jess shoulder barged past some guy lingering a bit too long in the middle of her path and ignored the startled “Hey!” he called after her.

God, Emily was fucking fast.

Jessica threw her braid over her shoulder and sped up, her long limbs making it easy to catch up.

“Can’t you just, like,” Jess paused and angrily pushed through a couple making goo-goo eyes at each other in the middle of the damn hallway, “read over my homework before I give it in or something? Or let me copy yours again? This shit was so much easier when you let me do that.”

Emily finished typing whatever she was typing on Twitter and locked her phone, sighing audibly and not looking at Jess. Emily made a beeline to her locker and Jessica quickly slammed her hand on it, keeping the cool, metal door closed. Emily glared at her and Jess made puppy dog eyes at her best friend. Her bestest friend in the whole wild world who, if she didn’t stop being a stubborn fucking bitch and helped her with English, would lose her “best” title and be downgraded to simply “friend”.

“Will you please just _stop_?” Emily snapped, rubbing her temple with one hand and pulling Jessica’s arm away from her locker with the other. For a brief moment, Jess felt a little bad for hounding Emily with helping her so much. It wasn’t like she did much to reciprocate and at this point Jess almost expected Emily to pull her out of sticky situations for nothing more than a “thanks, Em, you’re the best”.

But honestly, Emily should have thought about that before she decided to become the smarter, more responsible one of the two.

“Will you move your fucking hand? I’m not carrying all these books around during lunch,” Emily said, her voice sounding more tired than angry at this point, which was a good sign. It meant she was finally wearing her down. Jessica moved her hand from the locker, which Emily immediately opened and started shoving textbooks from her bag into. Jess tried to stay patient; all it would take was a bit more persuading and she was probably golden. She pursed her lips and let her eyes follow Emily’s hands as she tried to find a spot for her history book. Emily seemed to realise she was waiting for her to finish packing away her books and sighed loudly.

“Why do you want _me_ to help you so much?” Emily asked, sounding more confused than angry at this point, “Don’t you think it’s better you’re getting someone unbiased helping you?”

Jessica barked a high laugh and in the same octave said, “ _No!?_ ”

“Jess,” Emily slammed her locker shut and turned to the girl in question with hands spaced apart like she was talking to someone stupid, which really didn’t make Jess feel better, “you wanna know why I won’t help you?”

Jess opened her mouth to give the most guilt tripping answer she could think of, but Emily had clearly meant it in a rhetorical sense because she just kept on talking.

“Because A, you’re a terrible student and B, if I sat down and tried to teach you anything we wouldn’t get anything fucking done because you’d distract me, and then we’d start watching TV, and then we’d go to get food, and we’d forget all about studying.”

Jess pouted.

Of course, Emily was right. The whole reason she was in this mess in the first place was because every time she tried to study with someone she knew, all she wanted to do was talk and gossip and do something fun because the whole fucking point of having friends is to do fun shit with them, not sit around trying to find the 37th number in pi or whatever the fuck. At least in Jessica’s humble opinion.

There was a beat of silence before Jessica huffed and looked down, “Ugh, fine. You’re right.”

“Yes, I am.”

Jess rolled her eyes and looked up to see Emily grinning smugly at her.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, save me the whole ‘ _dur dur Emily is always right_ ’ bit, you made your point,” Jessica waved her hand as if wafting the very idea out of the air.

“Why do you even care so much about getting back on _the squad_?” Emily said, emphasising ‘the squad’ in a voice that implied she thought it was stupid to call it such a thing in the first place, “Half the girls on it are backstabbing, shit talking cunts.”

Jessica snorted and folded her arms, lightly bumping shoulders with Emily, “Exactly the reason I fit in so well with them, wouldn’t you say?”

Emily hummed seriously, “Mm, you’re right, actually.”

They both laughed a little before Jess cut them off with a groan.

“Okay, let's go to lunch. I gotta get some food in me, I’m fucking starving,” Jess absently fishing her phone out of her hoodie pocket and unlocked it to check Twitter.

“Jesus, Jess, I _saw_ you eat a Twix behind your textbook in math,” Emily groaned, turning from Jess and walking away from her knowing she would follow.

“Girl’s gotta eat, E-” Jess started, pushing herself away from the wall of lockers to follow Emily towards the cafeteria only to have someone, a very short someone, hurtle into her back and send her flying forward. Jess squealed and stumbled, snapping her hands to the lockers to find purchase there and dropping her phone in the process. Whoever had bumped her yelped and Jess heard them crash into the metal doors too, a few muttered curses escaping them.

Jess grunted and balanced herself, feeling a well of anger seep into her stomach. Her phone had landed face down and she snatched it from the ground and flipped it to find a spiderweb of cracks seeping from the corner of the screen. She stomped her foot and growled, high and whiny, before spinning on her heel and glaring at the offending bumper to find a short, scruffy looking red headed girl being helped up by an equally as scruffy looking blonde guy with glasses and a faux hawk. Jess clutched her broken phone in her hand, her manicured nails tapping against it, and inhaled sharply through her nose.

“Watch where you’re fucking going, you shit,” Jess snapped.

The big blonde guy gave her a dirty look and, seemingly out of nowhere, another dude appeared to stand by the two and placed his hand on the girls back almost as a warning to Jess. The three of them were glaring at her with equal ferocity which was apparently lost on Jess who stood her ground and glared right back.

“Are you kidding me? You walked right out, I didn’t even see you,” the redhead said, brushing her legs off and letting herself get propped up by the guys with her. Jessica let her eyes deliberately and slowly look up and down the girl and sneered. Off-brand sneakers, cargo shorts, and a t-shirt with some kind of cartoon Jessica had never seen faded onto it. Clearly, what this girl lacked in fashion sense she more than made up for in bad attitude. It looked like she’d slept in the damn things.

“You broke my fucking phone, dipshit!”

Jessica shook the offending item in the girls face who leaned back some and squinted at it. She batted Jessica’s hand out of the way and rolled her eyes.

“Well, then you better keep hold of it next time. I’m sure your parents’ll buy you another one real easy, princess.” The sentence was finished with a sarcastic smile that lasted less than a second. She began to walk around Jess who didn’t appreciate being brushed off so easy by someone wearing fucking _cargo shorts_.

Jess shot her hand out in front of the girl who stuttered to a stop, turning to glare at Jess again.

“Woah, woah, woah, you break it, you buy it. Pay up.”

A look of pure confusion flashed across the girls face, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“My screen, asshole. That shit’s not free. You’re paying for it to be fixed.”

The girl’s already wide eyes got wider and she angrily whispered a “what?” while bringing her hands to hover around her head.

“Are you _serious_?” She snapped, “I’m not paying for anything, you bimbo _idiot_.”

“Okay,” The dark haired guy stepped in, lifting his hands between them like it would help stop the brewing fight, “As much as I’d love to see two chicks duke it out right now, I think that’s enough.”

Jess stared at him, searching his face. He looked familiar.

“Josh, right? Josh Washington?” Jess guessed in a clipped tone.

“The one and only,” he had a smarmy grin as he said it, as if his mere presence would clear the tense atmosphere.

“Right. Stay the fuck out of this.”

“Yeah, man, I can take her,” the redhead called over Josh’s shoulder.

“No one is taking anybody.”

Jessica felt Emily’s hand clamp onto her shoulder, sharp nails digging through her hoodie and into flesh. Clearly, she’d noticed Jess hadn’t been following her and came back to find this whole situation. She was also very clearly _not_ happy with it.

Jess felt herself being pulled away from the trio of weirdos and didn’t fight against it, but the same couldn’t be said for little miss fire head over there.

The short girl’s frown deepened and she attempted to take a step toward Jess, but was quickly held back by the big, blonde guy. He grabbed her by the loop on her backpack, yanking her back to him and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“Forget it, Ashley, just let it go.”

The girl now identified as Ashley scrunched up her nose but didn’t do anything to break free of this guys huge arm. Emily spun Jess around with the hand digging into her shoulder to cut the staring competition short.

Emily moved her vice of a grip to Jessica’s bicep and pretty much dragged her all the way to the cafeteria. Jess whined and pulled at her arm the whole journey but Emily remained silent, which was worse than if she were yelling at her.

But how could she? The whole thing clearly wasn’t her fault. Facts are facts, and that gremlin of a girl had walked right into her and broken her phone! And she wasn’t even sorry about it!

“Em, let me gooooo…” Jessica whined and Emily finally relented her grip as they pushed through the doors to the cafeteria. Emily barely broke stride and shot Jess a glare who simply pouted some more. Why wasn’t her pouting working today? Did she have a zit? Did she have some goop in her eye? Was that throwing her off? Emily usually couldn’t stay mad at her if she was pouting, damn it.

“What the hell are you doing?” Emily said, irritation lacing her tone as she grabbed a tray and got in the slow moving line. Jess groaned dramatically and picked her own tray, as usual disgusted by how they were all still slightly wet.

“Look, the bitch was trying it, you weren’t even there.”

“Right, cause that shortass ginger nerd was going to be a problem for you.”

“She broke my _phone_!”

“So? You break your own damn phone every other fucking week!” Emily grabbed a plastic carton of salad and a bottle of water, Jess quickly grabbing the same. Her appetite was gone all of a sudden. Jess frowned and resisted the urge to stomp her feet like a toddler. Emily just wasn’t getting it.

“But that’s _different_.”

“I bet it’s not even broken, I bet the screen just cracked. Am I right?” Emily said cooly over her shoulder, turning back to pay for her food. Jessica flushed in irritation, flapping her mouth to rebuke her best friend but finding nothing to say.

“I… well, yeah, fine, but-”

“But, nothing.”

Jess hummed in frustration and slapped a couple of dollars into the lunch lady’s hand before bolting after Emily to their table.

Matt and Mike were already sat there, as well as Mike’s new _new_ girlfriend, Katie. Jess was honestly impressed by how quickly Mike had managed to get through most of the girls in their year before the holidays.

Mike barely spared them a glance when they sat down and while Matt actually greeted them, his eyes kept darting to another table across the room.

“You need to learn when to pick your battles, Jess,” Emily scolded, cracking open the plastic and digging through her salad to pick out the croutons.

Jess scoffed, “Um, excuse me, you pick more fights than anyone I know.”

Emily smirked, “I’m on the debate team. I’m allowed to fight with idiots.”

Jess scowled and stuffed her mouth with salad. Clearly she wasn’t going to make any headway on Emily today. First studying, now this. Maybe she was losing her edge.

Katie laughed a little too loudly at whatever shitty joke Mike had told her and both Jess and Em glared at them. Mike had his arm slung over her shoulders and was grinning that dumb smile at her that he thought made him look suave and cool and, to his credit, it actually got every girl swooning over him. To Jess he just looked gassy.

“Hey, Mike,” Emily started, causing both Mike and Katie to look at her like they’d forgotten anyone else was there, “How’s Stacy doing?”

Jessica snorted and tried to cover it with her hand. Mike cleared his throat and the arm he was holding around Katies shoulder tensed a bit. Stacy was Mike’s most recent ex-girlfriend. Honestly, Jess was surprised Emily even bothered trying to remember names at this point, girls were in and out of Mike’s arms faster than she could blink.

“She’s… fine, I guess.”

Katie shifted uncomfortably and Jess kind of felt sorry for her.

“Oh, you guess?” Emily nodded sarcastically, swirling her bottle of water around, “I thought I saw you talking to her yesterday at her locker. You both looked fine to me… _I guess_.”

Emily grinned knowingly and Mike frowned. The implication was heavy there and Jess resisted the urge to scream a laugh. Katie, poor girl, seemed to get the message too and let out a huff as she stood to leave, grabbing her bag as she stormed off. Mike groaned and rolled his eyes in irritation, standing to run after her and quote unquote “explain himself”.

“Stop doing that, Em.”

“Stop cheating on girls and I will, Mike,” Emily called as he paced after Katie.

Jessica giggled and shook her head. The brief intermission almost made her forget why she was even mad before. Almost. Jessica crunched away at her food and kept seeing Matt look between his food and whatever table was catching his attention. She turned her head and saw him looking at girl with glasses, laughing with another girl who looked exactly like her with a bob haircut and some blonde chick wearing a flannel several sizes too big.

“Matt?” Emily started. Matt jumped, like he wasn’t expecting someone to talk to him.

“Huh? Yeah? What?”

He suddenly sat up straight and stopped swirling his spoon around his pudding. Jessica raised an eyebrow at him and Emily just shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“Just go sit with your girlfriend, okay? You clearly aren’t ready to listen to Jessica’s tale of betrayal and deceit.”

Matt looked confused for a moment, unsure what Emily was even talking about and, to be fair, it’s not like either of them had said anything about the phone thing since they sat down. Emily had taken no time in ribbing Mike and Matt wasn’t even paying attention so there was no point.

“Are you sure? This tale sounds pretty juicy,” Matt grinned sheepishly and turned his eyes towards Jess who flipped a braid over her shoulder and sighed dramatically.

“Another time, Matthew. Another time.”

“Get outta here, meathead. Go make goo-goo eyes at your girlfriend away from us,” Emily made a shooing motion with her fork and Matt snorted, but quickly picked up his tray and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

“I guess I’ll see you guys later.”

Jessica took a swig of water and hummed a “bye-bye” sound. Her eyes followed him until he stopped at the table with glasses girl, who immediately grinned and stood up to bring him into a tight hug.

Jess swallowed her water slowly and leaned towards Emily.

“When did Matt get a girlfriend?”

Emily slammed her bottle back on the table and gave Jessica a incredulous look, “Seriously?”

Jessica grinned widely.

Emily scoffed, “They’ve only been dating for like, 2 weeks. How the fuck did you not notice? Do you really have your head so far up your own ass to pay attention to anyone else?”

Jessica shrugged. She didn’t mean to ignore everyone around her. She’d just been so _busy_ it’s hard to keep track of everyone else’s lives when hers was already so full.

“Whatever. What’s she called?”

Emily thought for a second and shook her head, “Hannah, I think?”

“As in Hannah Washington?”

“Well, I don’t know another Hannah.”

“As in Josh Washington’s sister? As in the guy who’s pissed at me because I gave his girlfriend or whatever a hard time about my phone just now?”

“Oh,” Emily smirked at Jess, “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Jessica tutted, “Small world, I guess…”

She was quiet for a moment, unsure of how to carry on the conversation which was an oddity in and of itself. Usually, Jessica could talk Emily’s ear off about anything and everything with barely time for a breath, her companion usually sitting there in contemplative silence until she was done talking and throwing in her own two cents. Her mind had already been swarmed with worried thoughts about this whole tutor thing; her grades; her lack of physical output since she’d been benched from cheer.

Jessica wasn’t used to having so many existential thoughts and she really didn’t like it.

Considering this was her final year in high school, never before now had she even thought about what lay beyond the monotonous walls surrounding her. Her grades would affect her future, undoubtedly, but the simple fact that her future would be dictated by whether or not she could tell the difference between a simile and a metaphor angered her in a way she couldn’t articulate.

But she couldn’t think about that right now.

That ginger weirdo had just pushed through the doors.

“There she is,” Jess stated, nodding to herself. She saw Emily glance up from her phone in her peripheral, but she clearly wasn’t interested because she looked back down at the screen and kept scrolling.

“Yup. There she is.”

“Who even is she? This _Ashley_.”

Emily sighed a bit louder, clearly not as into this conversation as Jess was, “I don’t know, Jess.”

“I’ve never even noticed her before today, is she new or something?”

Emily groaned and deliberately locked her phone, turning to Jess and giving her a frustrated look, “Why do you even care?”

Jess pouted but kept her eyes on Ashley, watching as she and her bodyguards descended on the table Matt, Hannah, and the other two girls were sitting. They were close enough that she could see them, but far enough not to be able to hear what any of them were saying. It was now that Jess noticed a skateboard strapped to Ashley’s backpack and Jess scoffed, deliberately ignoring Emily’s question.

“So she’s a nerdy skater chick? Probably smokes weed too, god, could she be any more a cliche?”

Emily let out a frustrated groan, flinging her arms into the air in a “are you fucking serious?” gesture. 

“Again. _Why do you even care?_ ” Emily pushed.

“I _don’t_ care!”

“Then stop fucking talking about her!”

“ _Fine!_ Jesus, can’t even let a girl vent.”

“You smoke weed too, you fucking hypocrite,” Emily added and Jess tore her gaze away from the table of nerds (and Matt) to look at Emily.

“Yeah, but like, I’m not fucking obnoxious about it.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Emily nodded slowly and took a deliberate sip of water.

“I’m _not!_ ”

Emily raised her eyebrows and looked away, shrugging, “Sure, Jess.”

Okay, she was just goading her at this point.

“Besides, you’re a cliche too. I mean, rich, blonde bimbo with a love for hot pink? _And_ you’re a cheerleader?”

Jess rolled her eyes and got back to picking at her salad. She already regretted buying it, but she didn’t fully trust the school cafeteria when it came to food that had to be cooked anyway.

“Whatever. Let’s just drop it.”

“Now you want to stop talking as soon as _you_ say so,” Emily shook her head but the smirk on her face let Jess know she didn’t mean it maliciously. They’d been friends long enough to know what really pissed the other off.

There was a lull in conversation briefly as the two of them continued to eat their lackluster lunch, Jess trying and failing to stop looking at Ashley and her table of misfits. They were all laughing and Jess was surprised at how at ease Matt was amongst them. He was grinning and had his arm slung over Hannah’s shoulder, the couple getting awfully close to breaking the strictly enforced “No PDA” rule.

“I guess we won’t be hanging out after school then,” Emily mentioned casually.

Jess sighed, “Yeah. I don’t know how long these tutor things last. I still have to go ask where I’m meeting them anyway.”

“I can’t believe they don’t tell you who your tutor even _is_.”

“God, I know. It’s so stupid. I think it’s so you don’t like, have any opinions about them before you go in or some kumbaya bullshit thing like that.”

Emily snorted, “Probably. Wouldn’t put it past this hellhole.”

“I’ll text you when I’m done, though. If you still want to chill at my place.”

“Sure.”

Jess nodded and felt her eyes gravitate back to _the_ table.

She felt a resolve not to think about this Ashley girl again. It was a fluke they’d even crossed paths in the first place, so it wouldn’t be hard to avoid her until graduation.

The girl in question was grinning widely and leaning over to talk to the big blonde dude.

Jess frowned and took a swig of water.

Totally a fluke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blease review,,,,, my crops,,,,,,, they're dying,,,,,,,

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading, yo!!  
> please leave a comment, they really motivate me to carry on these things :')


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